Towards a Better Future

Chapter Five: Transition from Second Level to Higher Education
university grants system in the late 1960s, demand began to exceed the number of places. The Central
Applications Office (CAO) was set up as a limited company in January 1976 by the universities to
administer a central system of selection and a common application system was put in place for
universities for the first time in the academic year 1977/8. Initially, the CAO acted only on behalf of
the universities but, in the early 1990s, it was expanded to include colleges of education and regional
technical colleges (now called institutes of technology). Since the mid-1990s, a number of private or
partially publicly-funded third-level colleges have also used the services of the CAO (Hyland, 2011).
Different selection systems were used by different universities in the early years of the CAO. For
example, while UCD accepted the best six subjects as the basis for points, Trinity College accepted
five and UCG accepted seven. Similarly, different colleges gave different weightings to different
subjects. NIHE Dublin (now DCU) initially used an aptitude test in addition to Leaving Certificate
results. Some colleges continued to interview students within the CAO framework and some
required applicants to provide a portfolio of work. For the first few decades of the existence of the
CAO, both the NUI and Trinity College continued to provide their own matriculation examinations,
which students could take either in addition to or instead of the Leaving Certificate. From a technical
perspective, the CAO system has shown that it can accommodate a wide range of different criteria
set by different institutions and programmes.
Successive studies carried out before and since the introduction of the CAO indicate that the Leaving
Certificate is a reliable predictor of student performance in higher education (Coolahan, 1979;
Commission on the Points System, 1999). In general, students who perform well in the Leaving
Certificate obtain higher grades on graduation. Results in Mathematics in the Leaving Certificate
are a particularly good predictor of subsequent academic performance, regardless of the discipline
chosen. Most recently, a study carried out by the HEA on progression in Irish higher education in
2009/2010 confirmed earlier findings (HEA, 2011).
The process of application and selection for higher education has been refined over the decades.
School leavers who wish to apply for a place in higher education are required to submit an
application to the CAO by 1 February of their final year in school. They can choose a maximum of
ten courses at Level 8 and ten courses at Levels 6 and 7, which they identify in order of choice. There
are two separate lists, Level 8 and Levels 6 and 7, and the system is designed so that students are
offered the top choice for which they are eligible on each list. They can change their mind about
their course(s) of choice until 1 July – except in the case of a small number of courses where criteria
in addition to the Leaving Certificate (e.g. interviews, portfolios etc.) are taken into account.
Applicants must satisfy the minimum requirements for their course of choice, and when demand for
places exceeds the number of places available, places are allocated based on the rank order of students
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